"Ah, well, my boy," says Mister McGivver, "that is another fine idea. The problem is, it costs so much to ship hogs that it becomes uneconomical. I mean, time you get em to some foreign port, the shipping costs eat up your profit."
"That's what I been thinkin about," he says, an he pulls out the little composition book, an damned if they ain't another whole section of sketches he's drawn.
"Fantastic! Unbelievable! Terrific!" Mister McGivver cries, leaping up. "Why, you should be in the Congress or something!"
Little Forrest has been at it again. He has done sketched a model of a hog transport ship. I did not understand all of it exactly, but the gist of it is this: Inside the ship the hogs is kept in layers from top to bottom. The floorin is nothin but heavy mesh steel, an so when the hogs on the top layer shit, it drops on the second layer an the second on the third an so on, until finally all the hog shit winds up in the bottom of the boat, where there is a machine like we have made here that runs the entire ship.
"So the energy costs are virtually nil!" Mister McGivver roars. "Why, think of the possibilities! Shipping hogs for less than half the normal cost! This is simply amazing! Whole fleets of ships powered by shit! And it doesn't have to stop there, either! Think of it - trains, planes, airplanes! All of it! Even washers and dryers and television sets! Screw atomic energy. This may usher in a whole new era!" He is so excited he is now wavin his hands, an for a minute I worry he is gonna have a fit or somethin.
"I'm gonna turn this over to somebody first thing in the mornin," Mister McGivver says. "But first, I want to make an announcement. Gump, you have been so helpful around here that I want to show my gratitude by cutting you in on one third of our profits. Now, how about that?"
Well, I was kind of surprised, but it sounded pretty good, an I tole him so.
"Thanks," I said.
Finally the time come for little Forrest to go back to school. I was not lookin forward to it, but it had to be. The leafs was just beginnin to turn on the sycamore trees when I carried him to the train station in the truck. Wanda was ridin in the back, account of she was too big now for the cab.
"I want to ask you somethin," little Forrest says.
"What is that?"
"It's about Wanda. I mean, you ain't gonna..."
"Oh, no - no, I ain't gonna do anythin like that. I think we'll keep her on here as a brood hog, you know? She'll be fine."
"You promise?"
"Yeah."
"Well, thanks."
"I want you to be good when you get home, hear? An do what your grandma tells you, okay?"
"Yeah."
He just set there lookin out the winder, an I got the feelin there was somethin wrong.
"You ain't unhappy about anythin, is you?"
"Well, I was sort of wondering, why can't I just stay here and help run the hog farm?"
"Cause you too young, an you gotta go back to school. We'll see about that later, you know? But it ain't time right now, okay. Maybe you can come back for Christmas or somethin, huh?"
"Yeah, that'd be good."
We got to the station an little Forrest gone around to the back of the pickup truck an got Wanda down. We set on the depot platform, an he was huggin her around the neck an kind of talkin to her, an I felt real sorry for him. But I knowed I was doin the right thing. Anyhow, the train come along an he hugged Wanda one last time an got on board. Him an me, we just shook hands, an I watched him through the winder as the train pulled out. He give me an Wanda a little wave, an then we gone on back to the farm.
Well, let me say this: The days that follered was crazy, an Mister McGivver, he was busy as a one-legged man at an ass-kickin contest! First, he done expanded the hog breedin operation tenfold. He is even buyin hogs from all over, an so in the months that come, we has got upward of fifty or sixty thousan hogs - they is so many of them, we lost count. But it don't matter, cause the more hogs we got, the more methane gas we produce, an by now we is not only lightin up Coalville, but two other little towns down the road. People from the federal government up at Washington says they is gonna use us as a model example an even want to give us an award ceremony.
Next, Mister McGivver has gone to work on the project of buildin the pig-shit fleet, an almost within no time, he has got three huge ships under construction over on the Atlantic Ocean at Norfolk, Virginia. This is where he spends so much of his time now, he has left most of the hog farmin bidness to me. Also, we has had to employ about a hundrit workers from the town, which was a great relief to them, as most was out-of-work miners.
Furthermore, Mister McGivver has expanded the hog-slop garbage collection to ever military base within three hundrit miles, an we is got fleets of trucks pickin up the garbage, an what we don't use ourselfs, we sell to other farmers.
"We are becoming a great national enterprise," Mister McGivver says, "but we are leveraged up to the hilt."
I ast him what that meant, an he says, "Debt, Gump, debt! We have had to borrow millions to build those ships and buy more land for the hog farm and trucks for the garbage operation. Sometimes at night I worry about goin broke, but we are in too deep now to quit. We are gonna have to expand the methane gas operation to meet expenses, and I'm afraid we're gonna have to raise our prices."
I ast him what I could do to help.
"Just keep shoveling shit fast as you can," he says.
So that's what I did.
By the end of that fall, I figgered that we has got somewhere between eight hundrit thousan an one million pounds of pig shit down in the mine, an the operation is runnin full steam night an day. We had to double the size of the plant just to keep it goin.
Little Forrest is due to arrive for Christmas, but about two weeks before that they has scheduled the ceremony to honor us for our contributions to society. The whole town of Coalville is decked out in Christmas decorations an little colored lights an stuff - all run by our plant. Mister McGivver cannot come home for the celebration on account of he is too busy tryin to get the ship fleet built, but he tells me to accept the award in his absence.
The day of the ceremony, I put on my suit an tie an drove into town. There is people there from all over - not only Coalville, but the little towns nearby an also a bunch of buses with folks representin civic an environmental organizations. From Wheeling, the governor an the attorney general has come down, an from Washington, they has come a United States senator of West Virginia. Sergeant Kranz has also come over from the army post, an the mayor of Coalville is already makin a speech when I arrive.
"Never in our wildest dreams," he says, "did we ever believe that our deliverance was at hand - saved, as it were, by a herd of swine, an the ingenuity of Mr. McGivver and Mr. Gump!"
The ceremony was takin place in the town square below the little hill where the mine entrance was, an the platform was decked out with red, white, an blue buntin an little American flags. When they seen me comin, the high school band interrupted the mayor's speech an begun playin "God Bless America," an the five or six thousan people in the crowd begun to holler an clap an cheer as I walked up the platform steps.
Everbody there shook my hand - the mayor, governor, attorney general, an the senator, as well as they wives - even Sergeant Kranz, who was wearin his dress uniform. The mayor concludes his talk by sayin what a fine feller I am, an thankin me for "revitalizin the town of Coalville by creatin this marvelous invention." He then says everbody should stand for the playin of "The Star-Spangled Banner."
Just before the band begun to play, there was a slight sort of tremor in the ground, but nobody much seemed to notice it but me. Durin the first verse, the rumblin in the ground begun again, an this time some folks started lookin around kinda nervous like. When they got to the high part of the song, there was a third rumble, a lot louder than the first, an it caused the ground to shake, an a pane fell out of a winder of a store across the street. It was about now it dawned on me that somethin bad was fixin to happen.
I had been so nervous that mornin when I was tryin to get into my suit an my tie an all that I had forgot to release the main pressure gauge at the power plant. Little Forrest had always tole me this was the most important thing to do ever day, account of somethin serious might go wrong. By now, most folks are still singin, but some is sort of mumblin to each other an turnin they heads to see what is happenin. Sergeant Kranz lean over to me an ast, "Gump, what in hell is goin on?"